Mark your Calendars for LDS Endowment

A site called Hot Mormon Muffins has created an attention getting calendar picturing luscious Mormon moms in appealing poses, after the style of 1950s pin-up artist Joyce Ballantyne.  The idea is to be a “vehicle to create dialog and deliberately debunk the subservient stereotypes of women’s roles within the Mormon Church.”  Note that a men’s version of the calendar, Men on a Mission, is also available.   The site founder was raised in a 6th generation Mormon family and has been excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for pushing this particular envelope.

Scientology’s Most Frequently Viewed Celebrity, Tom Cruise

While frequently glancing at attractive men or women on a calendar may be fun for many, repetitive viewing of highly edited video clips of a celebrity is mandatory (and smothering) for others.  Scientologist employees have been forced to watch Tom Cruise video montages for “inspiration” as part of their training, according to Marc Headley.  Headley’s new book Blown for Good details how as a Scientology employee-in-training he fasted from newspaper reading and “regular TV”, and was fed a steady diet of  Tommy Cruise video clips,  24-7.

Birthday of Baha’u'llah

Bahais around the world will celebrate the birthday of one of their founders, Baha’u'llah (November 12).  An ardent follower and marked successor of the Bab, Baha’u'llah declared himself to be the one promised by the Bab: the living manifestation of God in our time.  Baha’u'llah was bold enough to announce this prophecy, even issuing a dire warning to Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm I (1797-1888) if his status was not recognized.  The punishment: the “swords of retribution” of World War I.

Lost Books behind the Berlin Wall

Twenty years ago East Germans had their own retribution (of an entirely different kind): discarding communist-era books.  Monday marks the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, but  many East Germans did not want to be unified with their literary heritage under communist rule.  An estimated 100 million books were openly discarded in the early 1990s.  Fortunately the Reverend Martin Weskott saved nearly 1 million of these texts, storing and selling them in his barn, a veritable repository of lost texts reminiscent to the collections in Nag Hammadi,  Qumran, and the Cairo Genizah. 

Jewish Mystical Torah Scroll

Another carefully preserved manuscript is for sale this month, but this one is over 700 years old with an estimated worth of $500,000.  Sotheby’s Judaica will be selling the oldest complete Torah Scroll from Spain.  The scroll is unique because its Hebrew letters contain cabalistic “tagin.” The tagin are marks indicating an esoteric meaning in the Hebrew letters and words.  Combining these special letters into new words is promised to reveal the secret mysteries of God, creation, the universe, and future events.

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